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Article is clearly written by an idealist. I've worked with plenty of people who are superb in their field, but need constant whipping to stay on track. The

Article is clearly written by an idealist. I've worked with plenty of people who are superb in their field, but need constant whipping to stay on track. The threat of your manager sticking their head round the corner is a stick that keeps on-site employees grinding along. Good management helps, but positing that you should only hire people you trust with your life (or whatever nonsense it is they're saying) is silly.

shanemhansen 10y ago
> need constant whipping to stay on track > The threat of your manager sticking their head round the corner is a stick that keeps on-site employees grinding along. I would appreciate it if you'd share your current company/team, I'd imagine some other hner's would appreciate the heads up too, so they can avoid it.
carlmcqueen 10y ago
Agreed. Many very, very talented people don't love what they're talented at. As a result they do as little as they can to get paid well and support their families/interests. Working from home removes a lot of the accountability of their time management and also removes a lot of the 'you don't look busy, got time for something else?' that can happen with working at the office.
logfromblammo 10y ago
The constant whipping at my office generally just keeps me from working on potential backlog items. I have been told too many times to not do extra work beyond the minimum required effort, to do anything other than finish my explicitly assigned tasks and then goof off. I think the danger is that if I get deep into refactoring the nightmare module that no one wants to touch, I might be tempted to waste time getting to a sane stopping point before switching to whatever "change the font of this GUI label to be Comic Sans, bold" task I might be assigned next. If I could work remotely, and weren't specifically barred from having other employers by company policy, I could probably work 2 other full time jobs just like this one, and still have time for HN.
amyjess 10y ago
> The threat of your manager sticking their head round the corner is a stick that keeps on-site employees grinding along. I had a boss once who tried to do that with his team. He presented his presence as a threat, and I would physically flinch every time he asked "how's it going?". This same guy had never been in a management position before, was in his mid-to-late 20s with very little professional experience, couldn't handle stress, and whenever he got stressed he would take it out on his employees by either screaming at us or talking down to us like we were children. I am so glad I quit that job. That company was abusive in so many ways, but his attitude was the last straw. A couple of days after I put in my notice, I overheard him shouting at a couple of my co-workers in the most condescending tone, and I just felt sorry for them (and one of them was a friend of his from college, too). Every other boss I've had, at every other company I've worked at, was an actual leader who I've felt honored to work with.
oliwarner 10y ago
Happy to absorb a little rep loss here. People are taking the words "threat" and "stick" a little too literally and that's partly my fault for using them. I stand by my point though, however obscured. When working remotely it is very easy to not communicate. It's very easy to lose track of what's important. It's harder for a team hierarchy to quickly throw things around. It's easy for people who need motivation to become distracted. That's really what I mean. Just a visual reminder that "you're at work" makes the difference to some people. It probably works in the opposite direction for some others but in almost 20 years of doing remote work, that's never been my experience. Maybe it's because it's technical web stuff. Maybe we have a demographic of easily-distracted layabouts. You can be technically excellent, and perfect for an on-site role, and still be rubbish at self-motivation. You shouldn't avoid hiring somebody for an on-site role based on their off-site performance. Or get better at managing that sort of person. I guess what I'm really saying is the article is still wrong: you should never have to trust you employees. You should have enough contact with them to know what they're doing, how they're doing and what their goals are. That doesn't mean pinning them to the ground with a chair and torturing them, just some effective communication.

shanemhansen 10y ago

> need constant whipping to stay on track > The threat of your manager sticking their head round the corner is a stick that keeps on-site employees grinding along. I would appreciate it if you'd share your current company/team, I'd imagine some other hner's would appreciate the heads up too, so they can avoid it.

carlmcqueen 10y ago

Agreed. Many very, very talented people don't love what they're talented at. As a result they do as little as they can to get paid well and support their families/interests. Working from home removes a lot of the accountability of their time management and also removes a lot of the 'you don't look busy, got time for something else?' that can happen with working at the office.

logfromblammo 10y ago

The constant whipping at my office generally just keeps me from working on potential backlog items. I have been told too many times to not do extra work beyond the minimum required effort, to do anything other than finish my explicitly assigned tasks and then goof off. I think the danger is that if I get deep into refactoring the nightmare module that no one wants to touch, I might be tempted to waste time getting to a sane stopping point before switching to whatever "change the font of this GUI label to be Comic Sans, bold" task I might be assigned next. If I could work remotely, and weren't specifically barred from having other employers by company policy, I could probably work 2 other full time jobs just like this one, and still have time for HN.

amyjess 10y ago

> The threat of your manager sticking their head round the corner is a stick that keeps on-site employees grinding along. I had a boss once who tried to do that with his team. He presented his presence as a threat, and I would physically flinch every time he asked "how's it going?". This same guy had never been in a management position before, was in his mid-to-late 20s with very little professional experience, couldn't handle stress, and whenever he got stressed he would take it out on his employees by either screaming at us or talking down to us like we were children. I am so glad I quit that job. That company was abusive in so many ways, but his attitude was the last straw. A couple of days after I put in my notice, I overheard him shouting at a couple of my co-workers in the most condescending tone, and I just felt sorry for them (and one of them was a friend of his from college, too). Every other boss I've had, at every other company I've worked at, was an actual leader who I've felt honored to work with.

oliwarner 10y ago

Happy to absorb a little rep loss here. People are taking the words "threat" and "stick" a little too literally and that's partly my fault for using them. I stand by my point though, however obscured. When working remotely it is very easy to not communicate. It's very easy to lose track of what's important. It's harder for a team hierarchy to quickly throw things around. It's easy for people who need motivation to become distracted. That's really what I mean. Just a visual reminder that "you're at work" makes the difference to some people. It probably works in the opposite direction for some others but in almost 20 years of doing remote work, that's never been my experience. Maybe it's because it's technical web stuff. Maybe we have a demographic of easily-distracted layabouts. You can be technically excellent, and perfect for an on-site role, and still be rubbish at self-motivation. You shouldn't avoid hiring somebody for an on-site role based on their off-site performance. Or get better at managing that sort of person. I guess what I'm really saying is the article is still wrong: you should never have to trust you employees. You should have enough contact with them to know what they're doing, how they're doing and what their goals are. That doesn't mean pinning them to the ground with a chair and torturing them, just some effective communication.